The light was unusual. The old man had noticed it first thing in the morning as he awoke. It came from below and brightened the ceiling as it always did following a snowfall. He got up, made his cup of tea, carried it to the front room, and stepped over to the big picture window out of curiosity. He would guess about 5 centimeters had fallen during the night. The road outside climbed up the hill and enough snow had fallen to soften the curbs and cover the ice that lay underneath. March in the Rockies, what did one expect, palm trees? As he watched, a car turned the corner at the top of the hill. Halfway down, it was going a mite too fast and the brake lights flickered on. Predictably, the car began a gentle balletic turn, a pirouette in slow motion. He thought he could almost hear an accompanying fragment of Strauss. As the back of the car turned past him, he recognized a rental car license plate. The ballet ended abruptly as the car came to rest backwards in the snow bank beneath the window. The driver’s door opened and a man got out dressed in a sports coat with a prominent check and light blue slacks. He looked at the front of the car disapprovingly and kicked it. He limped back inside the car and started the engine, putting it in gear and giving it full throttle. The back wheels spun happily around, digging the car deeper into the snow. The old man smiled. The rental company was going to have one unhappy customer complaining how the no-good car got him stuck in the snow and what were they going to do about it. He could hear the complaining whine of the tires as the …